Jack of Harts

The Abilene-class cruisers began their lives as pre-gravtech spacecraft, but the Texas Rangers gave the Abilene-class gravtech frigates a new lease on life in the decades leading up to The War and beyond. They are small by modern standards, though generations of improving technologies have both opened up new spaces and then filled them back in as new missions were introduced. The original Abilene carried 150 crew and scientists into the distant void, but the Rangers are no navy to recruit such crews, and so their Abilenes are crewed entirely by cybernetic intelligences. Command for the starship officially rests with the senior Ranger on board, but the cybernetic crews maintain, repair, and run them with minimal outside input. Some are assigned to a common starship pool where any Ranger can take them out on missions. A single Ranger has commanded others for years or decades as they travel from colony to colony in their long mission to protect the common peace.